


The Dark Has Become So Overwhelming

by PrinceHandsome



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:12:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceHandsome/pseuds/PrinceHandsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Samantha Regina attempts to claim her prize, Junior FBI Agent Jack Coleman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark Has Become So Overwhelming

"My name is Jack Coleman, Junior Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, temporary Homicide Detective in The Narrows Police Department, Badge Number 1247." I repeat, some blood dripping from my mouth.

"And your Queen can go fuck herself." I add for good measure.

The three men torturing me take it about as well as you would expect. They get more screams out of me. They stopped with the hot pokers and have now moved on to alligator clamps hooked up to a car battery and cattle prods. Electricity hurts. I've been trapped in this dungeon for days now, I think. They're not feeding me much. I've gotten a piece of bread and a couple drinks of water from a canteen since I got dragged down here, but besides that, nothing. I'm feeling pretty weak, but that might just be from the torture. I can't remember much. I remember holding Valencia in her last moments. I remember killing O'Connor. I remember seeing Valerie. She was wearing some kind of weird outfit, a toga and platform shoes. I passed out after she said something, I can't remember what it was.

I woke up being dragged down the halls in this dungeon lit by torches, weird men in robes and bird masks staring at me as I went by. They chained me to a wall made of cobblestone in this god-forsaken room. I don't know what they want. All they're asking is if I swear my allegiance to God-Queen Regina. Usually when you're being tortured you get asked some questions, but these guys just repeat the same bullshit over and over. They're studying my responses, I think. Two of them are wearing the bird masks I saw earlier. The other looks like a knight straight out of the middle ages, except he's wearing a gas mask. I can't see anyone's eyes. They're all hidden behind reflective lenses on their masks. All I see is my own face, staring back at me. They're trying to play mind games.

"Do you swear your allegiance to Mother?" The Gas Mask Knight asks me.

"My Mom's dead. Is Mother the Queen? Or is this someone different? Come on boys, if you want me to answer questions, you got to keep me up to speed. All this torture and lack of nourishment is making my head a little fuzzy." I say, trying to keep strong.

They begin to electrocute me again. I hear the wooden door with the heavy iron handle swing open, but I can't manage to open my eyes or stop screaming to see who it is until they let up. I try to look at whoever came in, but my neck is hardly strong enough to lift my head anymore. I simply look at the floor, panting, trying to get ready for more torture, but a soft, tender hand cradles my chin. As if being pulled by puppet strings, I raise my head. It's Valerie. I've never been so happy to see anybody in my entire life. I let a few tears fall from my eyes in immense relief, but pull myself together. Crying in front of a girl is hardly attractive.

"Valerie… I'm so glad to see you… Where am I? Can you get me out?" I ask through ragged breaths, probably looking pretty desperate.

"My name is not Valerie, my son…" She says in a sad way, running her thumb over my cheek.

"What… What do you mean?" I ask, eager to get anything out of her.

She looks around her to the bird faced men and the knight. I also notice she came in with two men resembling the gas mask knight, simply with more crimson, and gold instead of silver. She sneers, and a chill runs down my spine.

"Leave us." She commands, venom dripping from each word.

Without a question or a second thought, all of them leave the room, shutting the door behind them. She waits until they're gone until she resumes speaking.

"I do have some remorse over my deception, but such manipulation is sometimes necessary for such grand visions. Without you, I could have never destroyed that den of scum and corruption, Washington D.C." She says, beginning to pace around the room.

I keep my vision trained on her. My hope and love that I felt when I saw her has now melted into shame and hate. I struggle against my chains as much as I can. I want to strangle her. I want her to die. I want to die.

"That was you? You used me! You fucking seduced me so you could kill all those innocents? You fucking bitch! You fucking whore! I'll kill you!" I scream at her, my voice beginning to crack from the lack of moisture and how much screaming I had been doing before.

I begin to cry again. It was all my fault. Everything that had happened was all my fault. Every death, every friend, every kill hit me like a ton of bricks. I drop again, the chains keeping me suspended, digging into my wrists. Valerie, or whoever she is, stops walking. I assume she's looking at me.

"My name is Samantha Regina, Chosen Daughter of Caesar, Queen of The Red, Slayer of the Corrupt, and Mother of all." She states, sounding a bit sad again.

I'm confused, afraid, and angry. I suddenly dry heave from the mix of emotions, not really having much to throw up.

"What the fuck are you… Talking about? Caesar? The Red? Mother?" I ask, not able to look up at her.

"I apologize. You are uneducated, ignorant to your destiny. Worry not, my little chosen one, you will flourish under my care." She coos, playing with my hair a bit.

A bit of embarrassment washes over me. I haven't showered since… Well, I haven't showered in a good week and a half. I probably smell like a corpse. I close my eyes, my mind wandering to better, brighter places. Valerie, I mean Samantha, smells heavenly. Her mere scent almost makes me think everything's going to be okay.

"Caesar was a fool, but none the less he was partially responsible for my rise to power, and he was kind. It was his downfall." She explains, continuing to toy with my hair, soothing me.

"Caesar's been dead for hundreds of years. We're talking about the same guy, right?" I choke out, trying to hold up a conversation.

"I understand your confusion, as child-like and adorable as it may be. I am surprised you were not educated on the matter by your superiors. Throughout the southwest a faction has emerged, a resurgent Roman Empire. They believe that the Romans of old had the perfect system, a way to utopia, and as such they seek to re-create it. They were powerful, before Caesar's death. Now they are led by a foolish child who knows nothing!" She yells, beginning to get angry.

I get the hint. Sore subject. I'll make sure to apologize later, once I'm choking her to death, that is.

"Oh." I say, drooling a bit due to the numbness taking over my body.

"The Red are my chosen children, the faithful who follow me. I believe you witnessed our true power during the burning of Washington D.C." She says, a bit of pride leaking into her words.

"Kids with guns… You just had numbers and technology… Our guys wiped the floor with you in New York." I say, smirking a little, proud of my own resistance.

Without warning she smacks me, leaving claw marks along my cheek from where her nails raked against my flesh. I feel a bit of blood begin to rise from them. I fight back tears. Even if she is a completely homicidal nutcase, we had better memories together. Every time she snaps at me I feel like I'm a child again, being scolded by his… Mother.

"You are merely fifteen, my son. You are a child with a gun yourself." She says, dragging her fingers across the wound on my cheek, making my insides stir with passion and fear.

"Fifteen years old, physically. I've seen enough to fill out the life of a bona-fide adult, though." I say back, my eyelids drooping a little from exhaustion.

"As you say. Moving along, to answer your other inquiry, I am indeed Mother of All. If this title confuses you, I will simplify it for your tiny mortal brain. I am God. It is true that I am in a vulnerable mortal shell, but one day, years from now, I will ascend, and on that day I will do as I please with this planet, a mere plaything in the scope of my power." She says in a matter-of-fact way.

I underestimated Samantha. She isn't a nutcase. She's off her fucking rocker ten times over. She's got enough crazy for an entire asylum, and then some. For a brief moment, the thought flashes across my mind that I might die in this dungeon. Then I remember. I had been shot in the chest several times by the police, and I had fallen into a rock quarry. I should be dead. My chest begins to throb with memories of pain.

"I was dying. What happened?" I ask, not believing I was even alive to remember such an event.

She reaches down and tenderly lifts my head, bending down to meet it. Every inch of her is so beautiful. Her hair, her eerily red eyes, her pearly skin, even the scars on her face glow with pure loveliness. She's so beautiful, and, to be honest, I really don't know why this admiration is swelling inside me. I'm in love with her for no reason, and my heart doesn't care for logic, or revenge. Fantasies of running away with Samantha flood my mind, replacing my rage with adoration. I hate it. Her silky yet venomous voice snaps me out of my stupor.

"I took you. I cradled you from your cancer, your plight of humanity. I labored you, as a mother labors her newborn." She says, smiling warmly.

I don't get it.

"Meaning?" I ask, a bit of a slack jawed look on my face.

"I healed you. You were dying, but your spirit shows remarkable strength. You simply refused to die. My High Priests took you and made you better. Where there were once holes, oozing with blood, there are now scars, which will be forgotten, in time." She says to me, her warm breath filling my mouth and nostrils, causing me to zone out a bit again.

"Impossible. I've met some good doctors, and they're not able to save a guy who got shot five times in the chest and took a three-story fall. I was dead before you even got me here." I say, a bit of my spittle falling onto her hand.

She lets go of my chin and instead grabs a handful of my hair, yanking on it to pull my head up. I grimace.

"You question your mother, boy? You question the miracles and sacred lotions I brought to your body in order for you to live? Would you prefer you die?" She says, enraged.

I shake my head as best as I can, fear closing my throat and catching my words there. She lets go of my hair, letting my head slump down again. I feel pathetic.

"You will be bathed. Your clothes will be washed, and your suit will be cleaned as well. Once you are satisfied and re-dressed, you will join me for a grand feast in the main hall. We will be joined by the head of my royal guard, Dmitri Ohrana." She states, smoothing out my hair a little before leaving.

As she leaves, several of her knights enter, unshackling me.

Big mistake.

I quickly throw a right hook and crack the one of the lenses on one of their gas masks. I quickly take a tally. Five, counting the one I just punched. I throw an elbow into the gut of the one holding me. He lets go and doubles over. Three more I need to beat on. I struggle to stand on my own, still weak. I head butt one coming for me, sending him to his back, but I see the remaining two have long swords, to my partial surprise and amusement.

"Let's get dangerous." I say to them, getting ready to take them on.

'That was a good one liner' I think to myself before I suddenly collapse, a pain surging through my body. The first one I punched had grabbed one of the cattle prods, stabbing it into my side. I fall onto my hands and knees, and he relents. They surround me. I have to fight. There are four again. I throw an uppercut, slamming it into the groin of the knight in front of me. He goes down. One to my left kicks at me but I catch it, throwing a punch to his kneecap, reversing it and taking him out of the action. The remaining two get me by surprise, though, kicking and punching on me. I can't get a defense up, and before I know it, they have me knocked out. My world goes dark.

I wake up in a chair at the end of a long table. At the other end sits Samantha, a huge, Russian looking guy standing next to her, staring daggers at me. She glares at me as well, simply blinking as I awake. She speaks to me from the other end of the table. Her words carry their way across, bringing with them a weight as heavy as a punch from a professional boxer. The echo helps the effect of divine speech.

"You've awoken, just in time to begin the feast. This is the head of my royal guard, Dmitri." She says, motioning to the Russian heavy.

I'm surprised. He doesn't look like the others. He's well-groomed, slicked back hair and everything. He's wearing a red pinstripe suit with a black dress shirt and shoes, with a white tie. He looks like he'd be more at home in a movie about gangsters than serving as a young woman's bodyguard. He simply nods to me, and I can see he's taking me pretty seriously. Glad to get some recognition for my fighting skills. I trained long enough for them.

As soon as her opening words cease to echo she stomps one of her boots under the table. On cue, four of the bird faced men shuffle into the hall from a door behind me. Each of them carries a dish and a drink. One of them sets a steak and a glass of wine in front of me. Another presents me with the biggest chicken leg I've ever seen with a side of steaming hot mashed potatoes and gravy, along with a large glass of milk to go with it. The third presents Samantha with a modest portion of beef, served with a side salad and a glass of milk. The last servant sets two large gourds on the table, one labeled with a purple X and the other with a white X. I assume it is more wine and milk. I lean down to take a bite, eager for the first decent meal I've had in months, but a dagger meets my neck. I slowly look at who's holding it, but before I turn my head fully, I'm poked in the cheek by a metal beak. It's one of the bird-faced men.

"Before we eat, I would like you to thank me for my kindness. After all, I could simply have had you killed for your disrespect." She says, smiling in a not-so-sincere kind of way.

I sigh.

"Thanks, Samantha." I say quickly, still eager to eat.

She stomps her foot, and everyone in the room, myself included, jumps a little.

"Unacceptable! You will address me as Mother! Now… Thank me properly…" She commands, leaning back in her large chair a bit.

"Thank you…" I say, swallowing hard.

"Mother." I choke out.

My stomach is spinning inside me.

"Was that so hard?" She coos in a condescending tone.

The bird-faced man removes his dagger and I begin to eat, shoveling portions of whatever I can reach into my mouth, washing it down with a mixture of fine wine and interesting tasting milk.

"I trust the meat is to your liking. I remember how you like it." She says, smiling at me, not touching her own food.

I pause for a moment, painful memories of our brief relationship flashing before my eyes, but I dig back in quickly. It occurs to me that she has given me a fork and a knife, but my instinct to feast overtakes whatever plans I had of escaping. I continue to eat until the bone on the leg is picked clean and there is not even a scrap of my steak left. The potatoes and gravy may as well have never existed, after how thoroughly I devoured them. In the duration of my meal I also emptied both containers of milk and wine, becoming a bit tipsy.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" She asks in a motherly tone, still having eaten nothing.

I nod, smiling brightly, on the verge of tears from the pleasure and relief of it all. In my haste I had not realized that I had been washed and put in a fresh, black suit, matching the one I had entered with. I smell nice. I notice a pin on the lapel, the silhouette of a ram's head with a red background on it. It matches the pin I saw Samantha wear when she was masquerading as Valerie. It then occurs to me that the symbol represents this cult she controls. The Red. It's been staring me in the face this entire time, on flags and tapestries, but it was only now that I realized it. I keep my hand on the knife, pretending to lick the juices off of it, disguising my true intent, hoping she'll take the bait. She stomps her foot, and I hear the bird-faced minions begin to enter the room again.

Perfect.

One reaches for my plate and I stab him through the hand, quickly following up with a right hook that cracks the lenses on his mask, knocking him over. While he is falling I swiftly pull the knife from his hand and spin around, throwing it and landing a killing blow, the knife sinking through the mask and piercing the forehead of another one of the servants. I feel crisp, renewed, and deadly. A good meal and being a bit drunk can make all the difference in the world. The third runs at me, but he's no match. I side step him and bring down an elbow to the back of his head, knocking him onto his face. I assume he's out of the action, for now. I see Samantha stand, prepared to make a run for it.

Dmitri approaches me, and I prepare for a real fight. I spring into action, punching him in the gut with my right fist, and then following up by punching him in the gut again with my left. I look up and see it has had no effect, and he is actually smiling at me. He picks me up and throws me down onto the table, breaking it in half, and also shattering the clay gourd I landed on. I'm fairly certain I've broken something, but there's no point in letting the pain get to me, not now. I roll backwards and pick myself up, but before I can prepare he's back on top of me, throwing a punch that cracks my jaw and causes pain to rocket through my entire skull. I duck a follow up and jump into an uppercut, sending him stumbling backwards a bit. That's my opening. I begin to throw wild punches at his chest and head while he's stunned, hoping to do as much damage as I can.

My fists feel like they're going to snap, and to my amazement, he simply straightens up and punches me in the stomach, causing me to double over in pain. This guy is a stone wall. I quickly jump up and back up, smiling. Only one way I can see to deal with a stone wall, right now. He charges at me, prepared to slam his fists into me, but I roll out of the way, causing him to run head first into the cobblestone wall behind me. He actually plows through it and into the adjacent room, which is thankfully empty. I check on him, finding that he is knocked out. I smile and nod, feeling triumphant, despite the fact that my entire body aches.

I turn and glare at Samantha. It's payback time.

"You're going to pay for everything you've caused, Regina. An eye for an eye." I say, slowly stumbling to one of the dead servants, pulling the knife from his forehead.

"You are a fool Jack Coleman! You will be shackled in that dungeon your entire life if you do not learn respect!" She screams at me, her hair becoming slightly ruffled.

My brain tells me to think of a one-liner, but I ignore it. No time for jokes, now. My vision is clear and my hands are flawless instruments. I raise my arm and throw the knife at her with deadly precision, watching as it zeroes in on her head. She quickly snatches it out of the air before it hits her, promptly throwing it back, sinking it into my chest. I let out a shocked and ragged gasp as I feel my lung collapse. I fall to my knees, gasping for air, panicking. She wasn't supposed to do that. I try to get up but she quickly approaches me, stabbing me in the shoulder with her own knife. I fall on my side, grasping the handle of the knife in my chest, still gasping for air.

"You will learn respect, worm. I was going to show you kindness, I was going to show you generosity, and in return you kill my servants, and attempt to kill me! Your own Mother!" She yells.

"I will give you to my High Priest. He is a bit of a scientist, I suppose. He enjoys experimenting on living flesh. Finding new ways to cause pain. You will be in the dungeon for weeks, knowing only agony and madness. One day I will release you and allow you to gaze upon my divine form once more, and on that day you will learn to sing praise unto your god." She sternly spits at me.

I try to grab her boot, to look up at her, to do anything. I don't want to be sent back there. I want to apologize, but all I can do is gasp for air. She moves her boot away from me, looking down in disgust.

"Mother… Mother…" I choke out, willing to say or do anything to avoid more torture, my will broken.

She smiles, and for a brief moment, I believe that fate has smiled upon me. She then raises her boot and stomps on my face, breaking my nose, causing blood to gush out of it.

"You will learn that you have no hope, Jack Coleman." She says to me, preparing another stomp.

"I'm a slow learner." I say, grinning a little.

She stomps on me again, and I return to the familiar, comforting blackness.


End file.
